LLU 82

My face gradually turned bright red. I had said it thinking that if it was Choi Junghan, he really could do something like that, but once the words came out, they sounded like an extreme case of self-consciousness overload.

“So what? What exactly did I do? Buy the whole building? Go on, keep going.”

“Enough. Get lost. I’m busy because I have to clean up.”

I tried to close the door right then, but this time Choi Junghan didn’t obediently back off. He quickly blocked the narrowing gap of the front door with his hand, flung it wide open, and strode right into the entryway.

“What the hell are you doing? I said get out!”

“Let’s go for a drive, Oon-ah.”

He gently grasped my wrist and repeated in an elegant voice.

“It’ll be fun.”

It was a proposal no different from the horrible one earlier. Not a single change in the texture of his voice or a single shift in temperature.

My teeth chattered. My chest swelled up fully, then trembled and deflated. I now understood that what Choi Junghan had just said carried the meaning of a warning.

If I rejected his proposal here, chased him out beyond the front door, and started cleaning, I would once again be subjected to a terrible deluge of water. Perhaps he would use something even more annoying and dreadful than water.

“You’re really a son of a bitch.”

“Call me whatever you like.”

“Fine. Let’s go, damn it. Let’s see just how much fun you’re going to make it.”

I glared at him with full venom in my eyes.

“And call your employees to clean up my house completely. Tell them not to touch anything else and to clean only the wet parts.”

“As you command.”

“And have them take away those damn cameras too.”

“That won’t be possible.”

“……”

If I exchanged any more words with him, I felt like I would collapse from a fit of rage. I shot him a look of utter disgust, then turned sharply and walked past him. Wherever I stepped, water dripped with plops.

I should have changed my clothes before coming out. Because I got so heated with Choi Junghan, I forgot even that and just came out as I was. But as soon as we left the one-room building, Choi Junghan lengthened his strides. He opened the car door parked in front and handed me a large towel and a shopping bag.

“What’s this?”

“You’re wet. Change into these.”

“……”

I was dumbfounded. Was there anyone else in this world besides Choi Junghan who would spray water everywhere and then prepare a change of clothes and a towel?

For a moment I had felt embarrassed thinking it was self-consciousness overload or whatever, and now I felt like an idiot. While I glared at him with daggers in my eyes, Choi Junghan calmly wrapped my body with the large beach towel and wiped me down. I swatted away the hand that delicately wiped away the moisture as if handling a child who had come back from playing at the beach.

“I’ll change when I come out.”

“Change in the car.”

After arguing back and forth a few times, I eventually got into the car in a state of complete resignation. I was hungry and too exhausted to keep refusing with any energy left.

Sitting in the back seat, I roughly wiped myself down and changed out of my wet clothes. The clothes he had brought were all ones he had bought for me in the past. The familiar scent of his house rose thickly from the fabric. Automatically, the events from a few weeks ago came to mind again.

As he had said about going for a drive, the car drove for quite a long time. I didn’t even ask him where we were going. I simply stared blankly out the window.

The scenery whizzing past gradually grew denser with greenery. Trees, grass. And mountains. While I kept my eyes on such things for a long while, the car began preparing to park in front of a restaurant.

“What is this?”

“We should eat first. It’s the basics of a date.”

Choi Junghan, who had turned off the engine, smiled brightly and unbuckled his seatbelt. Since I was feeling intense hunger at that moment, I got out without a word.

This restaurant looked large and luxurious, but unlike the last one, it seemed a bit more like a place ordinary people might visit. I sarcastically asked why he had come to a place where commoners go, but Choi Junghan showed no particular sign of being offended.

He led me inside the restaurant looking extremely pleased. When he gave the reservation name, the staff guided us to a room in the back. It was a cozy yet refined traditional Korean restaurant.

“Since we’re already out on a trip, and it seemed like the kind of place we went to last time was a bit burdensome for you, I looked around and found this one as well. Do you like it?”

“What’s there to like or not like? You decided everything on your own and brought me here.”

“You like Korean food the most.”

There was nothing else to say in response. As he said, it was true that I liked Korean food the most.

Courses came out just like last time. This time, I ate and drank the pretty, neat dishes that arrived at just the right pace without much resistance.

Was it because I was overwhelmingly hungry, or because after going through all sorts of chaos that morning I had somewhat given up? Even though I had been absurdly dragged here, my heart felt a little calmer and lighter than a few days ago. It was strange.

After finishing the meal, Choi Junghan took me to a nearby walking path. He parked the car in the park lot and we slowly strolled around the lake.

The early winter air that touched my cheeks was clean and clear. I took a deep breath. The cold air pleasantly penetrated my lungs.

Honestly, it wasn’t bad. Everything I was sensing right now. My stomach was pleasantly full from high-quality food, and the weather was clear enough to feel good.

That was why it felt all the more alien. Wondering if I was really here with Choi Junghan.

Suddenly I thought of the cherry blossom trees visible from Choi Junghan’s house. Below his house stretched an endless walking path, and in spring it became a path formed by flowers in full bloom.

While locked in his house, I used to watch people walking along that path. Listlessly, yet with hope. Praying fervently that someday I too would have a day like that. But at the same time, I also thought that rather than walking side by side with Choi Junghan there, it would be better to stay locked up forever.

Yet now, I was walking along the lakeside with Choi Junghan like this.

It was an unrealistic situation. My own self calmly doing this felt incredibly unfamiliar. Right now, Choi Junghan wasn’t tying me up and dragging me, nor was he threatening my family.

I could have refused Choi Junghan’s request to go for a drive as much as I wanted. Although he had used the dirty method of the sprinkler, I knew well that compared to the oppressive attitude he used to show, that was nothing more than child’s play.

Above all, Choi Junghan could have forced me as much as he wanted, yet he wasn’t doing so. It would be natural for me to push him away, and for Choi Junghan it would be easier to bind me and break me effortlessly.

So why. Why on earth. Why weren’t we doing that?

What kind of force was at work between Choi Junghan and me that prevented us from acting according to our innate wills?

“Isn’t it about time you told me?”

It felt like we had walked for about twenty minutes by my estimation. I finally opened my mouth.

“Told you what.”

“Your purpose in coming every day and doing all this.”

The comfortable atmosphere subtly twisted. My mouth went completely dry. I had to ask a question I didn’t want to ask.

“Do you… want to go back to the life where you kept me locked up like before?”

“If that were the case, you’d already be tied up in my house.”

Choi Junghan said it without laughing. It was true. Choi Junghan was fully capable of doing that. He could lock me up the same way as before, force me not to attend school, and cut me off completely from the world. If he set his mind to it, it would be simple.

But he wasn’t doing it. I needed to know the reason. I needed to know why Choi Junghan was circling around me mysteriously like this so I could respond accordingly.

“Then… what is it? Why the hell are you doing this? It’s not like you’re going through all this trouble just to have one meal with me.”

“But it is?”

“…What?”

“I’m doing all this just to have one meal with you. That’s exactly right.”

Lately, Choi Junghan kept shutting my mouth countless times. Once again at a loss for words, I looked up at him. Even the footsteps that had been advancing steadily stopped.

“What can I do? I want to win your heart. Since tying you up at home doesn’t work, I have no choice but to attack with a different method.”

Looking at Choi Junghan shrugging his shoulders as if he couldn’t help it, I let out a hollow laugh.

“So the new method you came up with is coming every day and pathetically clinging to me like this?”

“I like that phrasing. It sounds like a man completely in love.”

I had deliberately used provocative words to provoke him, but it was no use. The feeling that he was still an impregnable man remained valid. Although he was using a different method from when he locked me up and restrained me, the persistence and tenacity were no different from before.

“…What if I don’t want it?”

“Then I’ll wait. Until you acknowledge your own feelings and accept mine.”

“What if I tell you to wait forever?”

Hearing Choi Junghan’s voice that didn’t waver at all, anger rose in me.

“What if I tell you not to date or marry anyone and to wait for me forever? Would you still do it then? Chase after me like this for the rest of your life?”

“Oon-ah.”

His quiet voice cut through my heated, boiling words.

“I’m already doing that.”

Along with the words, his clear gaze pierced toward me through the chilly air.

I couldn’t continue speaking. I just stared at him endlessly. At the man who kept taking my words away. Choi Junghan also met my eyes without avoiding them.

In the middle of the quiet walking path where there were hardly any people, only the sound of pampas grass rustling—swish swish—on the wind reached my ears.

In truth, I wanted to ask. Every moment I’m spending with you like this is confusing to me, so why are you so firm? What exactly makes you like this?

Is that your way of loving?

But I couldn’t ask Choi Junghan any more than that. I was afraid. The more I dug in, the heavier the meaning Choi Junghan was trying to convey to me became. His words, which didn’t know emotions and didn’t know how to decorate, felt frighteningly sincere in this moment.

I shared an immeasurable amount of time like that with Choi Junghan. It was a moment as quiet as the sunlight gently sparkling on the surface of the lake. Whether I liked it or not, I felt that this time would be remembered for a long while.

“Kyaa! Kya! Kya!”

“It’s us, you’ll get hurt like that. You have to play carefully.”

A mother’s high-pitched voice soothed the child. I rolled up my sleeves and hurried after the child with quick steps.

What on earth was this situation? Somehow, every weekend lately I was being dragged to places I hadn’t even remotely expected.

“It’s nothing big… I just really wanted to see your face… It would be nice if we could have a meal together. Would that be okay, perhaps?”

A few days ago, my mother had called with a cautious voice. She said there was nothing else to talk about, she just wanted to see my face.

I couldn’t bring myself to refuse. The desperation was clearly evident in my mother’s tone. So right now, I was tirelessly scurrying around following a baby who was stirring up the kids’ room attached to a gamjatang restaurant.

Even while watching the child, light updates on recent events came and went sporadically. In our conversation that kept circling around the surface, the one person’s story that we couldn’t possibly avoid was deliberately being suppressed. My mother and I both pretended hard not to notice that gap in the conversation.

“But, Oon-ah.”